ROOM:6.22
The Talking Cure
by Nancy Kuhl
1
To be alive now
is to take this
into consideration:
the bottom of breath
is nearly not human.
Turn sound toward
meaning by force.
Mouthful of gravel
or moss and
language,
this language—
bloodied, in pieces.
Monstrous,
misshapen thing.
2
Worn out and
nerve-shot,
her ache is ramble
then rant. Or
it’s a language
half-heard,
halfhearted.
Her pain is a voice
pulled by handfuls
from the throat.
Bibliography and External Links
- Nancy Kuhl’s fourth book of poetry, On Hysteria, is forthcoming from Shearsman Books in 2022. She was a research fellow at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis from 2010 to 2019. She is co-editor of Phylum Press, a small poetry publisher, and Curator of Poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
- Email: nancy.kuhl@yale.edu
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